Who You Are (Berlin 1996-11-03) vs. Lightning Bolt (Oklahoma City 2013-11-16)

Who You Are may well be my favorite song on No Code, but I'm not a huge fan of this version. Eddie is to nasally, the music doesn't have the subtly of the studio version, and most importantly the playfulness seems a bit lost. It seems like it is taking itself a bit too seriously, and Who You Are is kind of a stupid song if it's not winking at itself (and it took me way too many years to catch on to the fact that it is).

I'm not sure I ever caught that Eddie sings 'bend a little' during the bridge, so at least I learned that (or remembered it)

As much as I love Lightning Bolt, those first 45 seconds really aren't very good. Force of Nature is kind of the same way. Two of my top 3 songs on the last two albums, but you have to be a bit forgiving at the start.


Mike is doing great work on this version.

it's such a shame they didn't write this song a few years younger. Eddie does struggle to keep up with this live, but he's also not carrying these performances. Great outro.


Vote for Lightning Bolt

Who You Are is the worst written PJ song.

It's not great, but it's definitely better than PJ by numbers lightning bolt.

Its who you are. Im not a fan of either, but still its WYA.

LB is kinda of a shame...Ed doesnt know how to properly sing it, the band sounds kinda tired until the end where its really growing into something cool. Yeah, Mike does a great job.

I do like the studio performance, where it builds to something breathless while not actually being out of breath. But that's not the case here.

Who You Are

LB

yeah, Ed can't sing LB very well

Never has.

I didn’t think either of these were the best I’ve heard. That said, I think this version of LB was a little better based on the outro on LB and the lyric flubs on WYA.